We hear Economic Update with host economist Richard Wolff. The show features analysis of unemployment numbers to show what they hide as well as reveal; responses to listeners' questions exposing the economics of lotteries and why the largest US corporations have recently used their profits to buy back their shares in the stock markets; and an in-depth interview with Prof. Sohnya Sayres exploring the end of free college and universities in the US, the rise of administrators dominating students and faculty, and what these trends have meant for the quality of higher education in the US.

ANGELA DAVIS Author, Educator and Activist Through her activism and scholarship over the last decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in our nation’s quest for social justice. Her work as an educator – both at the university level and in the larger public sphere – has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice. Professor Davis’ teaching career has taken her to San Francisco State University, Mills College, and UC Berkeley.

Martin Ford is a Silicon Valley executive who has just written a new book called "Rise of the Robots". In it, he talks about the way robots are slowly taking away jobs while unnoticably moving up the level of sophistication in the jobs they can do. According the NY Times, Ford says "once thought of as a threat to ony manufacturing jobs, [robots] are poised to replace humans as teachers, journalist, lawyers and others in the service sector." KBOO's Don Merrill talks to Martin Ford on Political Perspectives.

Journalist and author David Barsamian, host and founder of Alternative Radio, spoke at a benefit for KBOO at the Clinton Street Theater in March. His topic was "Capitalism and the Environment: Collision Course." He also talked about the media, the erosion of democracy in the US, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and many other topics.

Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with Per Espen Stoknes about his new book, "What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action."

The more facts that pile up about global warming, the greater the resistance to them grows, making it harder to enact measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare communities for the inevitable change ahead.

Host Jim Schumock speaks with Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz about his book "The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them." Stiglitz expands on the diagnosis he offered in "The Price of Inequality" and suggests ways to counter America's growing problem. He argues that inequalityis a choice - the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities.

Panagioti Tsolkas moderates this panel, which explores the intersections between the epidemic of mass incarceration and the environmental degradation which occurs, directly and indirectly, as a result of it, including: the immediate impacts of pollution from these often-overpopulated human warehouses; the environmental racism of where prisons are built and how they operate; the re-branding of prisons as part of a “green” economy; and the use of prison as a tool for repressing ecological movements aimed at changing the current political/economic system.

During the Bush administration the Envronmental Protection Agency mandated that Portland install a costly filtration system to "protect" us from Cryptosporidium which has never been a problem with our Bull Run water. The City argued in court against the EPA in 2007, and lost. Host Stephanie Potter speaks with Regna Meritt of Oregon Wild and Floy Jones of Friends of the Reservoirs about what we can still do to keep the Bull Run "elegant, endlessly sustainable, and as yet, not corporatized." Regna & Floy will speak with Commissioner Randy Leonard this Saturday, April 11, from 10 am to noon at the Glencoe Elementary School Cafeteria at 825 SE 51st Ave about this issue. Congressional staff have been invited and the public is encouraged to participate.

Host Lisa Loving speaks with Sofia Smallstorm of 9/11 Mysteries about chemtrails. Sofia Smallstorm will be speaking at the Multnomah Friends Meeting House at 4312 SE Stark on Saturday, April 11th at 2:30PM.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Alva Noë about the brain and consciousness. Noë’s controversial new neuroscience book, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness, which argues that consciousness does not arise in the brain, has received glowing praise from the likes of Oliver Sacks, Daniel Dennett,and Hilary Putnam.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Avigail Abarbanel, a former Israeli soldier who now lives in Australia. She says her army experience turned her into a pacifist. She is the Canberra director of Deir Yassin Remembered. She is a psychotherapist in Canberra.

Host Per Fagereng interviews Ellen Hodgson Brown, author of The Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth about Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. Ellen Brown says the banking system has been contrived so that big banks always get bailed out by the taxpayers from their risky ventures, but the scheme has reached its mathematical limits. There isn't enough money in the entire global economy to bail out the banks from a massive derivatives default today. When the investors realize that the "insurance" against catastrophe that they have purchased in the form of derivatives is worthless, they are liable to jump ship and bring the whole shaky edifice crashing down.

Host Stephanie Potter speaks with Andrew Nikiforuk, author of "Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent." Canada is the largest supplier of oil to the U.S. Canada now produces more oil than Texas or Saudi Arabia. Canadian tar sand oil is dirtier and more environmentally destructive than conventional oil. In his recent book Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, Nikiforuk critiques the oil industry, oil-friendly bureaucrats, and petrol-guzzling North Americans for contributing to the problem. (More links: GreenPeace Vacation spoof, Oil Sands Truth, Oil Sands Watch. )

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Ravi Batra, professor of economics at Southern Methodist University and author of The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos. Batra predicted the financial meltdown way in advance, offering his latest forecast in February last year to Texas Monthly: “When the American bubble starts to burst around mid 2007, and beyond, foreign investors will head for the exits…” Now that the American housing bubble is bursting at the seems, Batra’s biggest fear is that foreign investors will indeed head for the exits, and the already feeble dollar will collapse. Then we will see a rapid unraveling of our debt based economy, rising unemployment, bulging poverty, and big stock market crashes.

Host Emily Young interviews Joel Berg, author of "All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?"

In his new book Joel Berg looks at the growing number of people who are hungry in America. He takes to task politicians who remain inactive; the media, which ignores hunger except during holidays and hurricanes; and the food industry, which makes fattening, artery-clogging fast food more accessible to the nation’s poor than healthy fare. He even chides organic food gurus such as Michael Pollan and Alice Waters for saying that the recent increase in food costs is a positive development, an assertion Berg deems to be class biased.

Host Linda Olson-Osterlund interviews London based Journalist, Author and Human Rights activist Andy Worthington. He has released the most comprehensive list of all of the men who have been locked in Guantanamo. How they were picked up, what they were accused of, if they have been released and what's happening to them now. They also discuss the treatment of Guantanamo prisoners under the Obama Administration.

Comments

Please ask Mr. Naito if his love of democracy extends to his business. Would he be willing to turn his development firm into a employee run cooperative corporation, giving ownership and organizational rights to employees. Mr. Naito's concern for democracy probably ends at doors to his corporation. Mr. Naito looks at this battle to develop the Hood River riverfront property as a public realtions battle. He will promise the community jobs and the city council financial support, and the council will eye the property tax revenue as a benefit to the community. If he is successful, once again we will be selling our responsibility to the land and the river for a short term gain. Mr. Naito cares little for the community, but operates on greed. If the environmental laws and regulations were not in place he would not be concerned at all with the impact of his development on the river, the wild life, and the ability of people to enjoy what nature have given us for free.

Bravo for having this debate, though. And controlling the civility of the debate.